Gita 09.18 – God is not a remote controller – he is the pervasive sustainer
I am the Vedas. Thank you.
In the end all, in the universe. So, he speaks how? Katir Bharta Prabhu Sakshi The Ti is the destination. Bharta is the maintainer.
Prabhu is the master. Sakshi is the witness. Nivasah Sharanam Suhadev.
Nivasam is the residing place of the shelter. Sharanam is the object of surrender, object to whom we surrender. Suhadev is the supreme abhishak.
Prabhava is the origination. Pralaya is the destruction. Sthanam is the place where things rest in the beginning.
At creation they originate from him and at destruction they rest from him. Nidhanam is the treasure. Bheemjamavayam is the imperishable seed where we get a very inclusive, cosmic or trans-cosmic conception of God.
Some people may think of God as just one person who is there somewhere. Maybe he exists or doesn't exist also, we don't know. Even if he exists, maybe he is somewhere in some far off planet and he is there.
He is. Whether he has control over this world or not, we don't even know. Sometimes the movie songs say, oh has God got retired? Has God taken retirement? Why is he not controlling the world? That's when you think something is wrong.
So all these concepts, all such notions, they are oversimplifications of the conception of God. Sometimes God may be presented like this, is God as his kingdom and he is the king in his kingdom. That is fine.
Now for a preliminary understanding, but a more philosophically informed understanding is that God is a supreme being, that he is not just one being, he is not just at the top of the hierarchy of all beings. He is the very foundation of all being. That means it is he who is the essence of all of existence.
It is he who is, as it's told over here, in various ways, the conception of God is given its most expansive description or illustration over here by explaining the day. It is Krishna that we aim to go to, we aim to attain and he is our destination. Some people think that I want something in this world and God is the means to that destination.
So here it is very clear that it is God who is our destination, not that things of this world are destination, that Bharata, that he is our maintainer. Yes, we may say that I have a job and I am earning, I am maintaining not only myself but also my whole family, but who's giving us, who has given us the abilities by which we are able to maintain ourselves, who has given us the capacities by which we act for our maintenance and who has given us the outer world as an arena where we try to maintain ourselves. All this is given by Krishna.
So he is our Bharata, Prabhu, he is our master. We are by definition, by constitution, we are servants and if we don't serve him willingly and lovingly then we have to serve him unwillingly and eminently through his illusory energy. But sir, we must, even when we turn away from him, he still remains our Prabhu but then he's our Prabhu through maya whom we serve.
He is present in our heart as the witness, sa-akshi. Krishna is our indwelling witness, antadrak, the Gopalita says that Krishna is the indwelling witness, sa-akshi. So we can't hide anything from him.
In front of him we have all our secrets known and we need to be humble before him. If you understand that he knows everything, that makes us humble before him. Even when we are in our house which may say that is my nivas, but our nivas has the nivas on the earth.
Our home lies on the earth and the earth is sheltered in Krishna's energy. And when we surrender to him, we attain the supreme safety. We cannot have any greater than what he is.
The universe goes on with its cyclic existential alterations. There is origination, there is system, there is instruction, there is organization and Krishna removes his shelter underlying it all and that is the first of the shlokas which are the shlokas of Krishna. So we can argue that Krishna is the foundation of everything.
He alone exists before creation, he alone exists in creation and he alone exists after creation. So when we create a creation and it is he alone, it is him and his energies which are part of him. So he is the treasure, he is the gold that is to be attained while we live in his creation.
As Guru Maharaj says, He went to the lord to seek a flourishing kingdom, but they realized that the kingdom is like a broken piece of glass. When compared to the lord who is bigger than the divine twelve and beyond that. This notion of an imperishable seed has been talked about earlier also in the 7th chapter.
The idea is that if he is imperishable that means he is not exhausted, he isn't exhausted. But normally when a seed grows into a tree, the seed itself disappears. Of course from that tree many other seeds may appear.
But that original seed has changed into a tree and it has lost its existence as a seed. But Krishna is not like that. He is the complete whole and he remains the complete whole even when many complete units emanate from him.
So this way he is the imperishable seed. That is he is categorically different from all other living beings who have temporary existence in this world. And even if they reproduce they cannot reproduce like him.